Top Ten Character Names I Love

As I'm getting deeper into editing and writing and reading again, I'm finding a lot of the readerly blog memes to be a lot of fun and a nice break from "work"! In fact, there are two separate Tuesday memes/features I especially enjoy -- Top Ten Tuesdays, and Teaser Tuesdays. The first of those requires making decisions, however, and I tend to have a hard time doing that (for some reason... is this a writer thing?). So, while I will participate in Top Ten Tuesdays on occasion, I think the one I'm going to do more often is Teaser Tuesdays. (First one coming up next week!)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at
 The Broke and the Bookish. 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is:

Top Ten Character Names I Love

1) Viola: I love the name Viola, and not just because She's the Man is one of my favorite movies.* I actually first found this as a book character name from is Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani.

2) Azalea: If you've followed my blog long enough, you know that my upcoming book, IF I SPEAK TRUE, was first called FLORA (I've since titled it "The Flora Series"). There are a few reasons for this, the most obvious being many characters are named after flowers and trees. So of *course* I like flower names, and I haven't heard of Azalea much, plus I really enjoyed Entwined (which is where this particular name comes from), so there you go.

3) Lennie: Four words: The Sky is Everywhere. That's really all I have to say. I love the name because I love the story and I love Jandy Nelson's voice as Lennie, so therefore I love Lennie, too. (Not to mention, it's not a typical girl name, so that's another reason I like it.)

4) Rowan: This reason is two-fold. IF I SPEAK TRUE has a Rowan (he's a good guy) and Hafsah's Unbreathable has a Rowan (not so good). Maybe it's the name. I don't know. All I know is, if I had a boy I'd name him Rowan right this very moment and never ever regret it. ;)

5) Will: Lately, it seems like every other guy character name in YA is Will. For two years, my David (sorry, IF I SPEAK TRUE on the brain right now, guys) was a Will, too, and as I continued to write and read, I realized just how popular Will is. Wills are just naturally charismatic and nice with big smiles and great eyes and the perfect hair and sometimes have an English accent, too. I don't care what book you're reading, if there's a Will, you're going to fall for him. So yeah. I love Will.

6) Jonah, Jonas, Joel: I've read the three of these multiple times (and have a Jonas myself in PITY ISN'T AN OPTION). Apparently I really like guy names that start with J. **

7) Warner: If ya'll have read any of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me series, you will recognize this name. I just like it. It's different, but not too much. I'm finding I'm really enjoying names that should be last names as first names as long as they're not too "out there". Warner just works. 

8) Malcom: My Malcom pick comes from Suzanne Selfors' Coffeehouse Angel. I just loved him and it made me love this name. (I've seen it somewhere else but can't remember where... and not just as the creepy, tarantula-loving guy on She's the Man!***)

9) West: First time I saw this was in L.M. Augustine's Click to Subscribe. Love it. (I obviously have a thing for W names, too! Ha ha) ****

10) Emerson: Ah, back to last names for first names again. This comes from Myra McEntire's Hourglass series. I just love this as a first name for a girl!

And there you have it!***** How about you? What are some of your favorite character names?

Pssst! I'm throwing a #JLBBirthdayBash for my birthday week and giving away books, book swag, t-shirts, and the good folks at Rafflecopter have thrown in a free month! You can check it out, HERE.

* Fun fact: She's the Man is actually based on William Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night. Which I haven't read. But the main characters' names are true to Shakespeare's play. 

** If you're into zombies, Carrie Ryan's (very) short enovella, What Once We Feared, has a Jonah in it that I totally would have loved to get to know better! (grumble grumble) If you're not into zombies but like a good novel that weaves tons of elements into the story and at the end makes you go WHOA, read On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta to find another Jonah. :)

*** Pardon all of the She's the Man references. It's like one of our favorite movies (along with Stick It) so we tend to quote it a lot around here.

**** Also, West is a character's last name in the Shatter Me series. (Had to make that connection for ya'll.) And as I am a huge fan of The Princess Bride movie and saw this mentioned somewhere else, I have to add that Westely is a pretty darn cool name, too. Okay. I am done now.

***** Remember how I said I can never make up my mind? Well I can't. And had to add that I've been seeing Thomas around a lot, too, and I just *love* the name Thomas. And Cam (from Neal Shusterman's UnWholly). So I kinda shared, technically, fourteen favorite names. But it could have been worse. And for some reason most of these are guy names. I don't know why. Still, I think I did pretty well. *pats self on the back*

The funniest thing happened on the way to my WiP...

So, first of all, as of the day I'm writing this, which is Monday evening, I'm about to reach the 45,000 word count on Flora, my YA WiP. Hopefully I'll even be past that by the time this posts. Honestly though, I will say, I'm shocked. Three quarters of the way done! That's a humacious *woot woot*, in my book. =) (Get it? Book? Hee hee)  

Anyway. I've been working on Flora for a while now, obviously, and as of last week, I still hadn't been able to decide on the MC's mother's name. She's a nervous woman who's been through a lot, is always worrying about the family, wringing her hands, crying about little things. 

Then finally, a few nights ago when I was trying to fall asleep, her name came to me. I realize I am saying this often, that things keep coming to me when I'm trying to sleep, but it's true! (And even though this happened when I was working on ILYU, it's happened much more with Flora, which I have found excitingly odd, as a lot of the book has to do with her dreams. Coincidence, my dear readers? I think not! Okay, maybe.) So, usually I'm at least thinking about things already, but this was different. It was a sudden, out of the blue sort of thing. I was going over the plot, trying to connect things in my head the way I always do to make my mind stop working, not even thinking about the mom, and then BOOM! The name hit me.  

I wrote her name smack dab in the middle of my journal in big letters (the journal I keep under my pillow for just that kind of occasion), and within a few minutes, I was fast asleep.

Fast forward two days. I'm sitting by the pool Saturday afternoon, working on info, adding little tidbits to the family tree as the girls were swimming. There are so many hidden meanings in Flora, things most people probably won't even notice, but they mean a lot to me. So I was going over names again, scrolling down page after page on a website, when the funniest thing happened.

I'd like to point out here that I wasn't paying attention to the names. The names were in the column on the far left on my screen, and I was looking at the meanings on the far right. When I came across this one meaning, it jumped off my cell phone screen, practically slapped me in the face.  

"That's it!" I thought, "It may even be better than the one I thought of! I wonder what the name is!"

And guess what? It was the exact same name I'd thought of two days earlier.  

Isn't that the craziest thing?